The Color Pink
by narugaaralover
Summary: Sakura is tired of being left behind, of being called weak, of crying her eyes out over things that cannot be undone. She wills her self up, and becomes strong, but will she ever be anything to the world other than the color pink?
1. Prologue: No Longer Will I Be Weak

**The Color Pink**

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Naruto characters, I only wish I did.

Summary: Sakura is tired of being left behind, of being called weak, of crying her eyes out over things that cannot be undone. She wills her self up, and becomes strong, but will she ever be anything to the world other than the color pink?

Pairings: Sakura/Lee, eventual Naruto/Hinata, eventual Sasuke/OC, maybe others…

Rating: PG, for now anyways…

**Prologue: No Longer Will I Be Weak**

After Tsunade became the Godaime Hokage, things had begun straightening out.

Lee survived his surgery and went on to make a full recovery made a complete recovery.

Shortly after Sasuke had left to be with Orochimaru, Naruto had left with Jiraiya to train. Kakashi had rejoined ANBU when the boys had left, which had left Sakura all alone.

Finally after weeks of fruitlessly crying her eyes out, Sakura had come to a decision, she would become stronger. She would show them. She would show everyone that she, Haruno Sakura, the weakest member of team seven, was actually the strongest. Mustering up what little courage she had left, Sakura asked Tsunade to train her; Tsunade agreed.

Sakura excelled in the medical field. With her near perfect chakra control, photographic memory, and her caring nature, she quickly rose through the ranks.

By age 14, Sakura was chunin and one of the top three junior medics in Konoha.

Deciding that Sakura still needed additional training in her other shinobi skills, Tsunade assembled a group of shinobi to help train her:

Gai and Lee would train her in endurance and taijutsu.

Kakashi would train her copying her opponents moves as well as anticipating them.

Anko would train her in stealth and ninjutsu. She would challenge her mind, her way of thinking, her thought process.

Kurenai would train her in genjutsu.

TenTen would train with her for weapons practice, training her to use all available weapons to her advantage

Ibiki, would train her in the art of interrogation.

She, Tsunade, would still train her in the medical aspects as well as how to channel her chakra to use it as immense strength, but the others would hone all of her other skills to precision.

To be a well rounded shinobi, you must be able to use anything to get what you were told to retrieve or destroy.

Between working in the hospital, missions, training, eating, and attempting to get enough sleep, Sakura was busy.

By age seventeen she was jounin and by age nineteen she was ANBU.

Sakura was a force to be reckoned with. She was on par with the best of the best in her shinobi skills and had surpassed Tsunade in her medical skills. She'd become a survival expert, even under the absolute worst conditions.

Her knowledge of not just the human anatomy, but of more than 100 animal species, was unheard of.

Sakura was positively lethal as well; her ability to identify and correctly use every known poison was, well, scary…

Despite being so very good at everything she did, she wasn't much of a people person. She avoided all her old friends from the academy like they had the plague because they reminded her of the old days before her boys had left, and only associated with those who trained with her.

Her health was taking a toll due to her constant going, going, going; all the time. So like the good medic and Hokage she was, Tsunade ordered Sakura to take a vacation. For six weeks she wasn't allowed to enter the hospital unless she was paged, in case of emergency, and was forbidden from going on any missions. The only things she was allowed to do were train and relax.

'_Here goes nothing,' Sakura thought as she left the Hokage's office after the announcement, 'I hope I won't die of boredom.'_

Yeah! Prologue! I hope you will continue reading. Please **R**x**R**.

**Terms to Know:**

Hokageà shinobi leader of Konoha

ANBUà elite shinobi; rank above jounin but below sanin

Chakraà the energy needed by a ninja to perform jutsus. There are a lot of different chakra-types a ninja can mold and use. (Normal Chakra, Healing Chakra, Kyuubi's Chakra, Cursed Seal Chakra,& Gates Chakra are just a few.)

Chuninà level above genin but below jounin, can take solo missions

Taijutsuà art of the well trained body; substance

Genjutsuà art of illusion

Ninjutsuà shadow arts

Jouninà rank above chunin but below ANBU; often take solo missions; take on genin teams


	2. The First Three Weeks & Day 22

**Part 1: The First Three Weeks & Day 22**

Sakura woke up when her alarm clock went off at 6:00 a.m. Jumping up, Sakura went to her closet and grabbed her hospital uniform before she realized today was day one of her six week vacation.

Sighing, Sakura put the uniform back in her closet before getting into the shower. Fifteen minutes later she emerged wrapped in a fluffy pink towel. Drying off she dressed in a short, sleeveless, red Chinese dress that came to mid-thigh with sakura petals adorning the bottom left corner, gold embroidery, and side splits that came to her hips.

Knee length black spandex shorts with gold embroidery were on underneath.

'Poofing' to her training ground, Sakura went to work on her taijutsu. Creating five kage bushins, she began fighting them. An hour later, after she had finally beaten her last kage bushin, Lee arrived. Taking up her stance once again, Sakura launched into a

mock battle with Lee after he'd warmed up.

Fighting with Lee was hard work. When she'd begun training with him and Gai, she'd been given a set of weighted leg warmers and arm bracers. She was up to 100 pounds on each leg and 50 on each arm, Lee's weights were much heavier though. If Lee ever took off his weights to battle her, she'd be hard pressed to beat him. Yeah, he was that good. As a taijutsu master, having a well trained body was his specialty.

Around noon, they broke for lunch and went to Ichikaru's to eat. After a lunch of miso ramen (Sakura) and BBQ pork (Lee), they parted ways.

Sakura then met up with Kakashi and worked on her evasion tatics until late evening.

The next day she met up with Anko for early morning training, hooked up with Kurenai for training over lunch, and worked on weapons with TenTen until late evening.

Day three was dedicated solely to Ibiki, interrogations lengths were varied, but always hard and painful, which is why Ibiki got a whole day.

It continued like this for the first three weeks of her 'vacation'. On day twenty-two, Sakura woke up later than normal. Ibiki's session had lasted until four in the morning, so she'd slept in until 11:00 a.m.

Getting up, Sakura put on a short, sleeveless, blue Chinese dress that came to mid-thigh with sakura petals adorning the bottom left corner, silver embroidery, and side splits that came to her hips. Knee length pink spandex shorts with silver embroidery were on underneath. Walking down the hallway to her front door, she saw that a slip of paper had been slid underneath her door.

Picking it up and reading it Sakura froze. Sasuke and Naruto were back. The paper said she was to report to the Hokage monument by 12:00 p.m. Glancing at her watch, 11:30 a.m., she decided she still had enough time to make it there before noon. Dashing out her door, Sakura practically flew toward the monument. All anyone could see of her was a pink and blue blur. Coming to a complete stop mere inches from Lee, she froze in place.

Tsunade, Jiraiya, Kakashi, Kurenai, Gai, Lee, Neji, TenTen, Shikamaru, Chouji, Ino, Shino, Kiba, Hinata, Sasuke and Naruto were all there. She'd been noticed by Naruto the instant she'd stopped. He broke out in a huge and sappy grin as he made his way over to her.

"Sakura-chan! I really missed y—," Naruto never finished his sentenced.

Sakura's fist had connected with the side of his head hard enough to knock him out, cold. Turning toward Sasuke, Sakura put on her genin days' face,

"Sasuke-kun," Sakura said sweetly,

"Nani ka?" Sasuke said smirking

"Take this you teme," Sakura yelled as she slammed her fist into his stomach.

The effects of her punch sent him flying backwards twenty-five feet into a tree effectively knocking him out, among other things. Turning around and storming off, Sakura'd left as abruptly as she had arrived. Lee paused for a moment, before running off to catch up with her.

The rookie nine, minus team seven (two members being incapacitated by the third), were left staring after her in shock. Sure, they'd known how fast she managed to out-rank the majority of them, but the display of power she'd just shown, was totally unexpected. This new side of Sakura was scary, if not frightening.

Shaking her head and sighing, Tsunade motioned toward Kakashi and Jiraiya,

"Bring Sasuke and Naruto to my office as soon as they wake up."

Chapter one! Hope you're enjoying the story thus far. Please **R**x**R**.

**Terms to Know:**

Taijutsu art of the well trained body; substance

Genjutsu art of illusion

-chan close female friend; usually a relative or best friend

-kun male honorific; used between close friends

Nani ka What

Teme bastard; asshole

Kage Bunshin Shadow Clone


End file.
